Currently, metal-insulator-metal capacitor (MIMCAP) technology scaled for high-density, high-speed applications suffer from large leakage current between conducting terminals in the capacitor. Leakage is driven primarily by scaling the device to ultra-thin dielectrics used to obtain optimal operating speed of the device. Leakage in these devices leads to standby power consumption issues and loss of data storage in the case of random access memory (RAM) applications.
In addition, a unit cell of a readout integrated circuit (ROIC) for infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) detectors require high storage densities coupled with compact layout areas. Leakage inevitably leads to refresh requirements, i.e., restoring capacitor charge to prevent data loss, in dynamic RAM (DRAM) circuits. The development of MIMCAPs with low leakage would therefore be useful. In one aspect, the subject technology satisfies these needs and provides related advantages as well.